A link to the past

[Y31HSA]

Hi all,

so i am beginning to plan a new campaign and decided to do something completely different by copying something already written and made.

I am in the process of editing maps and story to bring the SNES classic "The legend of Zelda: A Link to the past" to D&D 5e via a bit of photoshop, various image sources and Roll20. the beginnings of which look something like this;




So anyway I wanted to come on here and share my ideas and see if anyone had any ideas for my campaign.

i want to stay as true to the original game story as possible but also want it to be set frimly in the D&D universe not the Zelda universe, meaning i wont be using the various homebrew zelda guidebooks that our out there, i want to bring zelda to me not go to her if you get my meaning.


So obviously i will need to change a few key things, notably a party of 4 or so instead of a lone hero, some puzzles and other parts of the game too will have to be altered.

i am thinking of having the party start out in one of two ways;

1. they are a group of orphans living in an orphanage on the outskirts of town
OR
2. they are a group sent by the harpers or some other organisation and first stop is to meet the local contact at link's house only to discover he has gone off on his own....


mechanically i will be using milestones for levelling basically following every time a heart container is found in game players gain a level (its a magical device that brings out latent powers)
i will also be using heart pieces as a means for the players to increase levels outside of the main dungeons (need to find 4 to level up once) this means my dungeons and encounters will need to remain pretty fluid so that PC's areA hitting things at the right level.


I would love some thoughts from others as to what i can do for some of the puzzles and keep the story making sense with a party.

 

[Lanefan]

I never played Zelda so can't offer any specific advice there but at first glance the overall idea has loads of potential!

I wouldn't worry too much about making the encounters (particularly the non-essential ones) level-appropriate all the time, for two reasons: one, 5e's power curve is much flatter than 3e-PF-4e thus meaning you can throw a far wider range of foes at them and still have it work out OK; and two, they can always run away!

 

[Eltab]

Some of the puzzles require Link to stand on a specific spot to get an effect. A party can stand on two spots to trigger the effect, or have one person trigger it while the others try to guide whatever happens. For instance, a sliding boulder could be pushed off its initial straight-line course to hit the wall (rather than block the doorway across the room).

If your players start to figure it out, you could place some obvious "looks like a booby-trap to me" items around the dungeons, that do not exist in the original game.

 

[Y31HSA]

I actually never played anything before 5e so I'm not too worried about how it compares to previous editions, but thanks for the tip, problem is depending how focused on levelling up they are they could be anywhere between level 8 and 20 by the end of it. But that's a relatively simple fix.

 

[Y31HSA]

Some of the puzzles require Link to stand on a specific spot to get an effect. A party can stand on two spots to trigger the effect, or have one person trigger it while the others try to guide whatever happens. For instance, a sliding boulder could be pushed off its initial straight-line course to hit the wall (rather than block the doorway across the room).

If your players start to figure it out, you could place some obvious "looks like a booby-trap to me" items around the dungeons, that do not exist in the original game.

I like it, already finished hyrule castle and there's a specific puzzle there thst requires the character to pull one of 2 levers, one opens the door the other releases the snakes, I've made the room bigger by mirroring it and adding in 2 extra switches. Rather than habe a specific switch open the door I'll roll for it when they enter the room.... Depending on how much health they have remaining since its the last room in the dungeon.

 

[Zardnaar]

Your ideas aren't to bad, I don't think I would use the harpers, either set it on Hyrule or set it as a Zelda tribute game on something that is not FR.

Links Race is Elf I guess?

 

[Y31HSA]

Yeah harpers was just an example I'll pick a more suitable organisation if I go that route. Link will not be a large part of the game, he may make a cameo appearance at best. I want to stay away from setting it in the hyrule world, I can't explain why it's just what i want lol